Award-winning chef Raimund Hofmeister is sampling a new dish. But he will never put it on his menu. It's too bitter. "I had known nothing but success," Hofmeister said, relaxing outside his office at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank. The interior of the glass-walled office was lined with reminders of that success, an array of cooking awards and pictures of the mustachioed Hofmeister in his tall, white toque, flanked by politicians and celebrities.

The Los Angeles city parks agency voted Monday to allow chef Raimund Hofmeister, now backed by new financial partners, to reopen his culinary school at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center facility in Griffith Park. By a 3-0 vote, the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Commission approved the sublease between the city's equestrian center franchisee and Equestrian Culinary Enterprises Inc., the cooking school Hofmeister founded with his wife.

The Los Angeles city parks agency voted Monday to allow chef Raimund Hofmeister, now backed by new financial partners, to reopen his culinary school at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center facility in Griffith Park. By a 3-0 vote, the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Commission approved the sublease between the city's equestrian center franchisee and Equestrian Culinary Enterprises Inc., the cooking school Hofmeister founded with his wife.

Award-winning chef Raimund Hofmeister is sampling a new dish. But he will never put it on his menu. It's too bitter. "I had known nothing but success," Hofmeister said, relaxing outside his office at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank. The interior of the glass-walled office was lined with reminders of that success, an array of cooking awards and pictures of the mustachioed Hofmeister in his tall, white toque, flanked by politicians and celebrities.

February 27, 1992 | SUE REILLY, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES; Reilly writes regularly for Valley View.

Raimund Hofmeister quit his job as executive chef at the Century Plaza Hotel and Tower to set up a cooking school, the Los Angeles International Culinary Institute in Burbank. It's like Kevin Costner retiring, after winning his Oscars, to become an acting coach. Why would anyone walk away from the big time and big money to put his reputation on the line and himself in debt? It's 3 a.m.

This is what 18-year-old Billy Cayton of North Hills, who recently won a scholarship to a prestigious California culinary arts academy, would prepare for someone he wanted to impress: Salad: apple mushroom ragout. Soup: chicken consomme. Entree: breast of chicken stuffed with spinach and cheese, wrapped in foil, poached, grilled and sliced, served over linguine. Don't even ask about dessert.

The first time I was backstage at the Century Plaza Hotel, I led a small but sturdy, well-chosen band through a bland-looking side door, down a concrete corridor and finally into a covey of waiters waiting to serve dessert. Those following me were Ronald and Nancy Reagan, the newly elected governor of California and the First Lady. It was the night of the Governor's Ball at the new hotel.

After months of battling his former landlord, Chef Raimund Hofmeister of the Los Angeles Culinary Institute says he is happy to return to what he does best: training future chefs. The cooking school reopened at a new location on Ventura Boulevard and White Oak Avenue in mid-December, after being unceremoniously booted out of its previous site, the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank. The school reopened its restaurant, the Classroom, on Jan. 12.

Paving the way for an award-winning cooking school to move to more spacious quarters, a Los Angeles City Council committee Wednesday recommended approval of a combination loan and grant to renovate a North Hollywood medical office building. The money, a $552,500 loan and a $97,500 grant made possible by the city's Commercial/Industrial Earthquake Recovery Loan Program, would allow owners Robert and Diane Starr to renovate their 22,450-square-foot property at 11311 Camarillo St.

Los Angeles parks authorities decided Monday to take a bite out of the money made by a culinary school as it trains chefs at the city-owned equestrian center in Griffith Park. The city's Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners voted to require Los Angeles Equestrian Center Inc., which holds an exclusive lease to operate the center, to turn over 5% of the gross receipts made by the Los Angeles International Culinary Institute.

February 27, 1992 | SUE REILLY, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES; Reilly writes regularly for Valley View.

Raimund Hofmeister quit his job as executive chef at the Century Plaza Hotel and Tower to set up a cooking school, the Los Angeles International Culinary Institute in Burbank. It's like Kevin Costner retiring, after winning his Oscars, to become an acting coach. Why would anyone walk away from the big time and big money to put his reputation on the line and himself in debt? It's 3 a.m.

The contest: Bake the best gingerbread house. The rules: Use no more than $10 of material and finish within 12 hours. The result: a miniature Alpine village of 21 gingerbread buildings, from a church ready for midnight services to a Spanish-style house complete with the graffiti of an infamous Los Angeles "tagger."

When California chocolatier Rena Pocrass saw a competitor selling copies of her seashell-shaped chocolate dessert container, she was, well, shell-shocked. This was the design she created for a Nancy Reagan luncheon in 1986. She claimed copyright infringement and won in court, stirring up that culinary question: When does food become art? "It has opened a Pandora's box as to what is copyrightable," acknowledged Rick Pocrass, Rena's husband.